


Closer

by goodnightfern



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alien Castiel, Alternate Universe - ???, Asexual Castiel, Blood Kink, Communication, Consentacles, Fringe Science Fiction, Gore, Guro, Non-sexual Porn, Other, Pining, Sub Dean, Surgery, Tender Loving Guro, Tentacles, They have literally no shared language so uh, UFOlogist Dean, alright theres porn now, because they are aliens, drug usage, dubcon, nonbinary characters - Freeform, we are not adhering to the rules of medical science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-08-29 02:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 16,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8472574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: Ever since their ships appeared in the skies two years ago, Dean has been seeking the Celestials.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> alright alright alright apparently for me nano is gonna be Weird Shit month

He’s never been so close to one of the Celestials before.

That's what he calls them. Someone called in on the show once and spoke of the aliens as angels, as cosmic wavelengths of power and light, and the name had kind of just stuck. It’s been two years since the Celestials made themselves known - not to the world, certainly not to mainstream science - but so far, no one has an abduction story yet.

Dean doesn’t know if he even wants to share this. Maybe someone has been abducted before, and they knew. 

This isn’t something to be shared. This is for him alone. 

The Celestial glows down at him, and he basks in the light.

The touch is warmer than he thought. He shouldn't be able to feel anything right now, they've doped him up so good, but there's a strange warmth emanating from the tentacles inside of him. 

Pain receptors, Dean thinks. The serum they injected him with must be focused solely on human pain receptors, which means they've been studying humans for longer than anyone ever thought, and that's the end of all rational thought because the suckers have ridges. Tiny fusilli massaging his intestines. He wants to quiver but he has to stay still. 

The alien looks at him with eight hundred glowing blue orbs and he knows he's being good. He's opened up and splayed out and the tentacles are covered in red and he's so good, so perfect, such a fascinating subject. 

It's stroking the curve of his ribs, making gurgling croons that he hopes are a sound of approval, and then slips under his ribcage. It's touching his liver now, probing. He wonders if the alien can tell he's an alcoholic. The tentacles wrap around it gently, caressing the liver with tiny vibrations of the suckers, and then move up, deeper inside. Maybe it'll touch his heart. Maybe it'll feel the flutter of his beating heart with those tentacles, and suddenly it's the only thing he can think of. 

Here are his lungs, firm and spongy. The Celestial presses, clucking and crooning, and spreads them apart so tenderly he wants to fucking die. He wonders what he looks like from above. He wonders what the alien sees in him when it touches each vertebrae, hovering over the coccyx. A tingle shoots up his spine and he trembles on the slab. It pauses, waits for him to settle down, then touches that spot again. There must be some cluster of nerves there. 

It happens quickly. There's another careful press at his tailbone, and then one of the tentacles emerges holding the bloody segment of spine. For a moment he's terrified, but it's nothing but a tailbone, vestigial and useless. Already the alien has seen the entire sum of him. It knows what can be taken and what can be kept. It's embarrassing, how little he knows of his own anatomy, and here this celestial thing knows more about his entire species than he's ever known. He almost sobs with the sudden humiliation. 

One tentacle emerges from inside him, slick with blood, to cradle his cheek. If he looks down he might be able to see the cage of his ribs expanding with each panting breath, but the tears are hot in his eyes now. The tentacle crawls up to his eyes, tests the moisture, and the sounds deepen to a soothing rumble.

He's fine. 

He's safe.

It doesn't hurt; none of it hurts. 

Keep going, he thinks. Hopefully there's some kind of telepathic communication he can establish here. Some hormones it can smell. Some psychokinetic connection to make. It's a struggle to open his eyes and focus on the glowing being hovering over him, but he does his best, thinks every word of pleading and praise and desperation. Anything to get the tentacle back inside of him.

God, he wants it to hold his heart. 

The tentacle slips down his face, traces his jaw, the curve of his neck. Further down, sweeping across the collarbones. A bloody trail follows it until it scoops itself back into the cavity again, and the first butterfly kiss of a sucker on his guts nearly brings him to tears again. 

Further up and further in. His spleen is spooned in affectionate coils. Then down to the guts, exploring the long tendrils of them. His appendix is removed with a few careful sucks, held up to the light like a precious work of art before being set carefully somewhere he can’t see, somewhere along with the tailbone. Back under the lungs again, tracing the inner walls of his torso. 

Closer and closer to the heart. He hopes the alien can see how fast it’s beating.

It sees.

His heartbeat slows when the alien holds it in a cautious embrace. Each exposed ventricle is bathed in a warm, serrated touch. The suckers cling - not too tight, just tight enough to keep him safe. 

Careful with that, he wants to say. This is something precious, this could kill me - 

And it knows, it knows. Of course it knows.

Dean can feel each swell of his heart against the suckers. Each delicate ridge holding it close, the vibrations resonating in each tentacle. The blood on his face is drying into a second skin; it cracks when he smiles. 

When he wakes up he’s clean, tucked neatly in his own bed. The clock says it’s only been five minutes since the last time he saw it.

Lifting up his shirt, he sees it. A single clean line, a seam on his torso. With one finger he strokes down the ridge of it, holding his breath.

He gets an X-ray done because he needs to see it for himself. The vestigial organs are gone, cut away with such clean precision the tech has a worried look in her eyes. When she shows him the copies, Dean can see faint markings on his ribs, as if he’s been claimed. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i go again. this is a very experimental thing i got going on here. there is less gore here, but still gore.

Dean talks about the Reptilians. He talks about the Heaven’s Gate suicides and the shadow people. Someone calls into the podcast and asks when he’ll do an episode about the Celestials again, because she swears she saw their tracking beams and even though she lives near an airport -

“There’s a fairly heavy discussion going on in our forums,” he tells her. 

“I know, I’m a gold member there.”

“Then I’m sure you’ve seen all the exciting theories about who the Celestials are and what they want. But in the meantime, we don’t have much solid information - I guess I think I’ve talked enough about the Celestials. Right now? I’m waiting for them to make a move.”

It's all he can do right now.

Nights find Dean walking the fields around the trailer park. No antennae, no portable radio, not even his night-vision goggles. The cold makes the seam on his chest ache. His head is empty when he looks at the stars and waits. Summer fades to fall, Nebraska turns a warm sienna and Dean waits. 

He’s started hosting more open mic nights on the podcast. Lets the listeners make the show what they want it to be. They talk about the Celestials and he spins in his computer chair.

It happens on the equinox. Dean is drinking watery beer out in the bare fields again, and then suddenly he’s safe.

Warm.

Precious.

He knows it's the same alien as before the moment a tentacle caresses his cheek. He’s sitting upright on the same operating table, and the golden being floating before him gurgles like a waterfall, coos like a pigeon. 

“Hi,” he says stupidly, and a tentacle moves to his mouth. Explores his throat, pressing at his tongue. The adam’s apple is a fascination. He speaks again, draws out a slow hello, and the suckers tremble with the vibrations. When it coils around his throat he makes a humming sound. Lets it feel the echo in his esophagus. Lets it whisper around his jaw and stroke the roof of his mouth, go all the way back to his tonsils. His gag reflex is a curiosity. The alien draws back it’s tentacles, saves one to stroke across his forehead. Dean’s own saliva coats his face. 

“I’m okay.”

The tentacles shudder in reply. 

When one enters his ear he almost jolts. It’s worse than any wet willy his little brother ever gave him. It’s liquid warmth filling his skull with a low roar. A seashell held up against the ear. A radio tuned to static going through a tunnel.

Something clicks.

He sees -

He sees home.

Home is purple gases drifting through a crystalline sky. Home is humid and lush, spongy and dark. There are two pale moons he can barely make out through the atmosphere. There are floating jellyfish-like beings in the air, glowing and crackling electric. There is unicellular life droning, clustered in drifting clouds. 

Not all of them look like the one he knows. Some have longer bodies, more or less orbs of light he’ll always think of as eyes. No tentacles, hundreds of tentacles, forms gelatinous or solid. All of them are sparkling the same lightning, catching the clouds and sizzling against each other. Dean hears the crack and the hiss in slow motion as beings reach out to him. 

The world fades, the tentacle withdraws from his ear. 

Dean doesn’t know how to express his gratitude. He hopes the alien understands. He thinks about the most beautiful memories he has. He thinks of sticky popsicles in the summertime, his mother’s strong hands, his brother’s bare feet on dusty backwoods trails. He thinks about a sunrise he saw in the desert the first time he took acid. 

There’s no way to repay it. He hopes it understands what he understands - that this is the rarest gift the alien can give, the most precious thing it can share. Here are my precious things, he thinks, and he hopes it knows. He hopes it’s enough.

It’s enough. 

A purring vibration fills the examination room, and the light in the alien glows pink and orange. The crack and the hiss, again. 

“My name’s Dean,” he says.

“ _Ksss_ ,” it replies, and reaches for the same serum as before. This time, Dean knows what’s coming, and he lies back and lets the drug take over. 

When his throat is laid bare, Dean sounds out vowels and consonants, takes shuddering breaths and flicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The tentacles cling to the exposed tube of his trachea, absorbing every beat. Something presses on his larynx, something slips across his epiglottis. 

Dean speaks. 

It listens. 

When he wakes up he’s laid out on his bed. His throat is sore. For the rest of the day he lies in his trailer. He doesn’t speak a word to anyone.

At night, Dean opens a can of beer and lets it go flat as he searches the profiles of every member on the podcast forums. He makes a new account, approves it from his moderator account, and creates a new post.

He’s looking for an X-ray technician who’s a believer.

He’s looking for translators and codebreakers. 

It’s the least he can do in return.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally like to do this, but this is [pretty much what i see when i write about this alien cas.](http://spoopernaptime.tumblr.com/post/152996847431/todropscience-new-jellyfish-species-discovered)
> 
> also WHO SUBMITTED the tags to ao3 tag of the day cause you made my day and that was a lovely gift in these Hard Times you made me whip this chapter out

Sam says it’s ridiculous to move out to a trailer park in Bumfuck, Nebraska to devote one’s life to discovering aliens.

Dean says it’s ridiculous to pursue a career in some bullshit job that will only lead to massive debt and coffee-stains on overly starched suits.

Each brother to their own.

Some article on the web, The Six Whackiest Alien Conspiracies or some bullshit, mentioned Dean. That explains his latest surge in followers. So Sam calls Dean to tell him that he’s famous, and he better be okay, and he better be taking care of himself.

“Of course I am,” Dean says, tracing the scar on his throat.

Above his workstation his X-rays are clipped up to a string of Christmas lights.

So far his forum thread isn't going well. owoyolo92 reported him for posting off-topic. hotdogital420 sends him a private message claiming to be some kind of computer genius from MIT. gays4glory is shitposting as usual, and i-want-to-belieber has found a new soapbox to expound libertarianism from.

hotdogital420 sends another message.

They're like, totally for real, dude.

Dean chews his lip and considers. It wouldn't hurt to send the X-ray images. He should be focusing on his notes, anyways. The last six pages of his journal are a mess. There's sketches of the aliens he witnessed, thoughts on the possible composition of the atmosphere he tasted. There was more individuality than he thought among the Celestials. Their communications are a combination of sound and light and electric energy.

He should burn all his notes. Start from scratch. Fuck his terrestrial worldview. Stupid to approach this in any way he could have planned.

Just drawing up the memory leaves him overwhelmed with homesickness. Longing for a place he’s never known, could never fathom, and probably couldn't even survive in.

The pen skitters half-baked musings while he waits for his ancient printer to send the scans to his computer. There's some dumb network issue that takes a while to troubleshoot, and while new drivers install he traces the veins on his arm with the pen. It'll wash right off.

He’s started taking Benadryl at night rather than drinking. It helps him with the dreams.

In the morning, hotdogital420 has filled up his inbox.

Whatever it is, it's weird. Right. Not to worry, hotdogital420 is on the case. Only two conditions. A photo of the Celestials and admin privileges on the podcast forums.

No shit. The IP addresses, the fact that his post was reported and never investigated - sockpuppets are easy to spot. Maybe the kid really does attend MIT. They're a hell of a lot smarter than Dean, at least.

 

 

As fall settles in, the fields fall barren and cold. Dean looks at the stars, waiting for one to open in a sudden beam of light. The skies are so huge and empty out here. Dean's always been a Midwesterner, but out here in the fields the lights of Pierce don't do much in terms of light pollution.

It's after Thanksgiving when it happens again.

The waiting seems like nothing once he’s spread out on the table.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” it replies.

Dean chokes, and the creature shimmers. It's almost Dean’s voice, filtered through radio static and crackling, dragged over pavement and scraped raw.

“My name's Dean,” it says.

“Holy shit,” Dean breathes.

“Holy shit,” it repeats, and then cracks and hisses again.

As a (fringe, pseudo)scientist, Dean is compelled to experiment. “Ksss?"

It makes the same sound again, but slower. Teaching him.

Dean isn't nearly as fast a learner as the Celestial. “Khsss,” he tries again, and lights spark within the alien’s form.

When it holds up the syringe, that old homesick feeling slips away.

When it slits him open and reaches inside, Dean feels warm for the first time since the seasons turned.

When it reaches his heart and says, “My name's Dean,” he laughs and tries to reach for his own guts.

“Dean. Just Dean.”

The echo reverberates inside his torso, bouncing off his exposed ribs.

A tentacle runs over the grooves, suckers dragging on bone.

Dean wants so much, but he waits. His intestines are held up in three tentacles. Blood squelches as it adjusts the pile until his innards are cradled like an infant in the coils. A single tentacle probes at the empty spaces inside him. The sites of it's previous surgeries are investigated and attended to. Like any good doctor would do.

When his organs are placed back inside, two tentacles reach for the folds of parted skin. Awareness displaced by the serum and the need give his hands courage.

The alien stops moving when his hands rise.

He’s never reached out and touched the Celestial itself. His hands tremble but he holds on. In this moment, he should be terrified. He’s on the precipice here, but it's the cosmic octopus who has taken him to the edge so many times. No wonder he feels bold enough to leap. Familiarity breeds comfort, after all.

The Celestial has more tentacles than Dean can hold. One slides across his forehead, another strokes his flank, and the other two quietly slip from Dean’s grip.

“Not yet,” Dean pleads. “Please, not yet, I need - I just want -”

A crack, a hiss. The game of copycat is over.

“Just don't send me away yet.”

The tentacle at his flank traces his hips.

He’s been sealed, but not beamed down yet. This could be mercy. This could be anything.

“Dean,” it says, finally. “Just Dean.”

Calm washes over Dean, soothes the itching in his throat. A huff escapes, and he tilts his head back against the operating table.

This is progress.

This can't be rushed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the real mystery is who is hotdogital420??
> 
> also I haven't responded to all the comments yet because of Things but it means so much to me! this is such a weird thing and getting replies to my weirdness is wonderful.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not much guro, more plot, but it's comin' for ya

Dean keeps up a lazy correspondence with hotdogital420. Their emails grow more and more frustrated, run-on sentences punctuated with multiple question marks. Nor did they seem prepared for the serious responsibility being the admin of a conspiracy theory forum entails. 

He’s perusing a thread of people whining about certain users getting special treatment when the Skype notification on his screen goes off. 

No one Skypes Dean, not even his brother.

Some Asian kid wearing a headset and an honest-to-god MIT sweatshirt pops up on his screen. 

“Uh,” says Dean.

“Alright, dude, I think I’ve got it,” the kid says. “So this whole time I thought it was some kind of written language, right? And it is. Well. Kind of. Except it’s not - what I mean is, this isn’t any kind of alphabet -”

“So you’re -”

“Ugh, don’t ask about the username. I was probably stoned and eating a tofu dog.”

“Ew. So, uh. Why are you Skyping me?”

“Because I’m excited? Turn on your video chat, man, this is weird. I’m speaking into the void.”

“I don’t have a webcam,” Dean says. He built his computer ten years ago, his monitors are televisions with HDMI ports, and he’ll buy a little laptop or Apple product or whatever with a built-in camera when they’re safely another ten years behind the curve of modern technology. “Just tell me what you got?”

“There’s no alphabet. This isn’t even hieroglyphs - I thought it was just some random artsy design, but I’ve been showing it to some of my friends, you know? And Charlie is some kind of sound engineer and she said it looks like a modulated spiral groove. Your ribcage just got pressed to vinyl, dude.”

“Like a - what?”

“Do you know how a record player works?”

“I’m like twenty years older than you, of course I know how a record player works,” Dean snaps. “So you’re saying - this alien - he just wrote a little song on me.”

“You just need to find the right kind of needle,” the kid shrugs. 

“Yeah.” The computer chair is too slick to sit in comfortably. Dean chooses the floor. He stretches his legs into the mess of cables under his desk and doesn’t hear whatever the kid is saying; the pounding of his heart is too loud. 

 

 

Dean isn’t one of those believers who think aliens built the pyramids and shit. Precolumbian societies don’t get enough credit.

But he’s always wondered about the Nazca lines.

There are fields he doesn’t own he could desecrate. All the land Dean has is the lot he parks his trailer in - and he doesn’t own that. Only renting. 

There’s a massive satellite dish mounted on top of his trailer, and a smaller one that still says DirectTV on it. The entire roof is clustered with omnidirectional antennae, metal poles sticking spidery legs up into the sky, and kids throw rocks at them sometimes just to fuck with him. He can pick up signals from the fucking ISS if he wants to, but a ship orbiting the Earth, in his own damn atmosphere, is a ghost. An astral construct just outside his reach. An imaginary plane of his own conjuring.

Sometimes Dean gets a wild idea of just - blowing something up. Come and get me, bastard. 

There’s an abandoned barn thirty miles east of the trailer park. 

It would attract too much attention. 

Dean doesn’t need to get - he doesn’t need to be - 

He isn’t at that point yet. 

Back when Dean still dated people, a man once told him he had too many holes to fill. Then he had laughed awkwardly at the innuendo, and then said, “No, but - you know what I mean.“

Dean had walked away from that conversation.

Sure. So Dean’s got some issues. Maybe he has those empty days of being a hollowed-out shell, like his insides have been scraped out and eaten by some massive creature that lives deep in the recesses of his nightmares. Maybe he spent his entire childhood trying to please a father who just couldn’t be pleased. Maybe he lived for nothing but his brother and then his brother went and left him to start his own family. That has nothing to do with what he’s doing here.

What he’s doing here means something.

The Celestials wouldn’t have replied if it didn’t.

They chose him. They marked him. 

When Dean feels like he’s chasing nothing, he remembers the electric touch on his cheek. The weight of his heart in the Celestial’s tentacles. When his space heater rattles and the cold seeps in, he remembers the electric warmth of an alien’s embrace.

When the snow thaws and the fields turn to rich brown, it returns in a sudden beam of cold light. 

 

 

It's dark in the operating room. The Celestial is the only light in the room, just a soft golden glow. The tentacles pulse across Dean’s cheeks, and a horrible imitation of a human voice seems to come from every direction. At first the static hurts his ears, but gradually it shifts into a more discernible frequency. Dean stops cringing and looks up into the light.

“The least sensory input it receives for this, the better.”

Dean smiles. “You learned fast.”

“Humans live such short lives.” The tentacles slide down to his collarbones. “We are not understanding the time yet. So many tenses in the language.”

“Well, I think you're doing pretty good.”

“Communication is crucial. He will understand we. You will understand I.”

“That didn’t stop you before,” Dean says. “You know, humans generally sign consent forms before getting operated on.” 

The alien hovers, impassive. “You will consent to ensure the survival of your species. You will speak to the cloud before we release the pesticide.”

“Pesticide?”

“Yes. You will prove to the cloud that the Garden is as much yours as it it ours.”

“The Garden?” Leaning up on his elbows, Dean regards the sinuous form before him. “You mean Earth - my planet?” 

“We plant the Garden as a study in carbon-based life, to see it interact with its atmosphere. You are carbon-based life. The trees consume, the bacteria consume, and you also consume. Your changes to the Garden are rapid, but I prefer not to call your species pests. You will speak to the cloud as a representative of your species.”

His hands are cold, his stomach is twisting. He should be opened up already. “You want me to help you to save humanity.”

“Do you not want the same?”

“Of course I do. I just - I guess I didn't know what I was expecting.”

“Expect nothing. It is possible we will fail. The pesticide will be released, and the Garden will return to it's its previous state.” The Celestial drifts off to the side of the room, illuminating a floating rack of syringes. "You will do this to save your species. Or I will find another, less suitable."

"What makes me so suitable?" 

The Celestial does not reply. Heart skidding, Dean stares at it. It's floating in front of the rack, tentacles busy, but he's pretty sure it can still see him.

"Well, I'm in," Dean says. "If it means saving the world. Not like I can say no to that." Talking to a cloud. It sounds simple enough, but even as he's speaking Dean feels the universe expand into another dizzying dimension. He might be terrified, but the Celestial looks unmoved.

Dean can trust it. If he can trust it to do - the things it does to him -

"First you will learn. Then I will tell you more." A syringe is lifted by one tentacle. The alien clicks, sets it down to search for another. 

Dean is helpless, but he thinks. This thing wants to save the world with me. There's power in that. "Can you - can you tell me your name? Or whatever they call you on your planet?" 

A hiss, a click. An undulation.

"Caskuel," Dean tries. "Castyurl. Castiel?"

"That is one way to render it. Lie down. Now you learn."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I named him. And we finally have some idea of what the heck they want. 
> 
> I have also been recommended to watch Arrival. have you seen it? obviously, it sounds like my JAM,


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the dead of winter, when the skies are dark and the earth is frozen, humans gather together to remind each other that they are still alive. We rise and fall with the annual rhythms. Some of us may not survive the winter, but for now? Here we are. Happy holidays. Here's some guro smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly, the one trope I am weak for is Dean immediately calling Castiel Cas. I love it.

“So, um. What exactly is this gonna entail?” 

Castiel makes a sound in their own speech. “I cannot translate for you on my planet. The cloud must perceive you as sentient. As an equal.” A pale tentacle slicing him open along the oft-used seam, Castiel regards his ribs. “My methods of studying carbon-based life are considered strange, but strange planets demand strange measures. The new life that arises is bound to be even stranger. You will be my example. You will prove my theories to the cloud.”

“Whoa,” Dean says. “So you're some kind of mad scientist?'

“I feel no anger, certainly not toward my chosen profession.”

“It's just a turn of phrase.”

“I see. Your species seems adept enough at manipulating audio waves, but I do not see the physicality of it.”

“That's also not what I meant, but you do you, man.”

“We have neither your genders nor your means of reproduction.” 

“Do you not have slang?”

The alien considers, hissing. A few lights bounce around within the tentacles. “That is my slang.”

Reaching tentacles glow with pure white light, splitting the skin down Dean's torso. Blood bubbles up and streaks down, but all Dean sees is his ribs reaching up for Castiel. Open and exposed, Dean laughs. It's when he’s spread open that he feels the most companionable with Cas, and he’s past the point of worrying about the implications. 

Dean thinks he likes Cas. If the alien can comprehend slang, wants to learn his language, he might as well call it by his own name.

“You will learn my slang,” Cas promises, and one tentacle hovers above Dean's ribs. 

Every second slows to a crawl. Suckers spark on the ends of Cas’s tentacles, the ridges thrumming with a silent vibration. As soon as one sucker graces the markings on Dean’s ribs, he feels it. Then he _hears_ it, and then there is nothing else.

The song opens jaws around him and swallows. It sucks him down and digests him, eating away at every thought he's ever had, every sound he’s ever heard. Each vibration sinks into his skull, pulses his heart for him.

There was a time when Dean was twenty-one and wild and had just come out as bisexual. He went to some gay club in some big city. Popped a bunch of Ecstasy and LSD and lost his fucking mind in electro pop music and sweaty bodies.

Not that he's thinking about that right now. Later, he will recall that feeling, and realise that only now did he truly lose himself.

Because the fragment of consciousness known as Dean is gone.

All that exists is the sound of his ribs. The rise and fall of his blood in time to the crescendo and descent. 

The mind is floating in a dark space, one with the sound.

The sound grows, soaring to inescapable heights. The sound takes form, exploding into undulating waves of color. His ribs are tingling, sparking, burning, and when Dean opens his mouth to scream the sound tears from his throat. Vibrations numb his tongue, rattle his teeth, and still the sound - the sound - 

Somewhere down on Earth, a cicada rattles. 

Up here, Dean rattles.

This is the word become flesh. This is the body electric, singing in time to the universe. Eternity stretches along the spiral, and Dean is swept along for the ride.

Until Cas withdraws the tentacles. 

Dean looks up at him, suddenly lost.

Cas tells him he did well, that he learned fast, and it takes a moment for Dean to realize the sparks still dancing along his ribs. That Cas is speaking to him in their own way and he understands.

Throat suddenly thick, Dean opens his mouth. He wants to speak back. An insectoid buzzing sounds from his throat but it isn't right, and tears build up in his eyes.

"Patience," Cas says, not in any language spoken on Earth.

A jar is held high above him, holding small bits of flesh that resemble Castiel’s suckers. Two tentacles reach for his throat even as another two work on smearing his lungs with some sort of slimy unguent. When his esophagus is split open, Dean wonders how the hell he isn’t dead. He can’t focus on the tentacles anymore, the loss of the song too raw in his heart. 

The jar opens with a wet pop, and Castiel carefully slips the suckers inside Dean’s throat. Nausea builds when Cas reaches a tentacle up and through his mouth, brushing his tonsils, but Dean can’t even draw the air to choke. 

"I grew these for you," Cas says. "I grew many organs for you." Now Cas slices open his lungs. Another pop sounds, and new filaments of flesh are held up for Dean's observation. Tentacles work quickly to splice the spongy flesh inside. It looks like the honeycomb tripe from hot bowls of menudo Dean has eaten on hungover Saturday mornings. Dean could laugh, but he isn’t even breathing. He could tremble, but his nervous system doesn’t work. All Dean can do is watch.

It occurs to Dean that the tentacle inside his nostrils might be the only thing keeping him alive. 

He’s floating above his own self, now. Looking down at a slack face - that of a stranger. No way is that what Dean sees in the mirror every morning. Dean never looks this happy. His lungs are odd patchwork now. A terrifying moment, and then they begin the rise and fall. Cas pats the lungs like one might a good dog, humming with pleasure. 

Dean rockets back into his own body when the tentacle withdraws from his nose. 

"With this, you will breathe. You will stand naked on our world, and walk as we do. Demonstrate the full potential of your species." There’s a lingering excitement in their speech, as if Cas can’t wait to unlock whatever potential Dean has inside of him. To take this strange creature and help it transcend. 

Dean buzzes and bubbles joyfully back at Castiel, and the creature glows in return. 

One tentacle slips between his lips, pumping sweet fluid that trickles slowly down his throat.

"Rest, now. Heal. I will return for you." 

 

The computer is still on, blinking power light the only sign of life in the trailer. In the darkness Dean is without form.

It must be hours before he remembers his legs and crawls out of bed. Almost immediately he falls the floor. He tries to laugh, and the implanted organs in his throat shudder. Foreign fleshforms move under his chest, thrilling his bones. 

Dean remembers how to walk. He curls his hands simply to feel all ten of his fingers. He licks his lips to taste his own sweat. Still human, and yet.

In the cramped bathroom he strips naked. Stares at himself in the mirror. The seams of surgery are the only difference he sees, but he feels a network of filaments unfurling and expanding somewhere deep inside.

His eyes are still green, but.

Dean looks in the mirror, and something else looks back.

He has to admit, it looks pretty good.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is kind of a goofy chapter also i dont have no beta or nothing but look,[ i drew fanart of my own story](http://spoopernaptime.tumblr.com/post/156394587426/the-in-laws-this-is-relevant-to-this-because-if-i) :^)

“It’s gonna be awesome. We’re going to go down, to, uh, the Temple of Quetzalcoatl and revisit some of Graham Hancock’s theories.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam says.

The new muscles in Dean’s throat vibrate, deliciously. His voice - his human voice - doesn’t seem to sound any different. “Just for a month or so. We might - you know, those rocks? In Costa Rica?”

“Oh, sure. You’re just gonna be backpacking all over South America, then with - sorry, who the hell is we?”

“Um. Me and - “

“You met someone, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” It’s an easy out. Dean looks back at the bathroom mirror. He’s been getting stuck in front of mirrors a lot lately. Secretly, he wishes there was something visibly different. But even when he opens his jaw as wide as possible, he sees nothing. Maybe a small bulge at the back of his throat - or maybe that’s just his tonsils. Sam is making teasing noises at the other end.

“Is it a guy? Is it a girl? This isn’t another weirdo from your forums again, is it?”

“It’s fine,” Dean says, snapping his jaw shut. “Cas is - he’s really smart - he went to MIT and stuff and - “ and, okay. He’s used the name. This could work for a while, Dean thinks, and tries not to think of a giant jellyfish in an MIT sweatshirt.

Well.

It’s actually pretty fucking funny to think about.

“Cas? Is that short for something?”

“He’s, like, Russian? He’s foreign, actually. He’s only on this side of the pond for a while, so.” So now Sam can’t bug him about meeting the dude or anything.

“Oooh. Bet he’s got some sexy accent, huh? And you’re going backpacking with him.”

“It’s a research mission.”

“Sure.” Sam laughs. “Just remember to be considerate at the hostels, okay? Repeat after me, Dean. I will not get down and dirty in communal spaces where other people are trying to sleep.”

“Jesus!”

“Have fun, Dean.”

“Oh, I will.”

Sam sounds inordinately pleased. Dean was ready for Sam to ask to tag along. To ask hundreds of questions to hide the fact that he’s worried Dean is seriously starting to lose his shit. But dating someone - that was a good lie. It’s been a while. Aaron was six years ago and - yeah.

It was the whole alien thing. Started off cute, then interesting, then straight to intervention. Straight to Aaron and Sam and Mom all squashed in on the single loveseat in the trailer trying to explain to Dean that they loved him, they just thought he was living a lie. They loved him, but they didn’t even bother listening to his podcasts or respecting his ideas.

But now, Dean is dating a college graduate and going on a sexy backpacking trip to Mexico. All things considered, it’s a step forward. He’s already put the show on hiatus, made the necessary posts, given hotdogital420 a little extra power and opened applications for more forum moderators. His webmaster lives in Sweden, they’ll be fine.

According to Cas, it should only be a month or two of Earth time. When Dean tried to bring up things like physics, Cas had only glowed impassively at him. Not even a snide flicker about human limitations. Maybe Cas lives on the dark side of the moon or something.

At the grocery store Dean stocks up on waterbottles and dry goods while trying not to curse in alien-tentacle-language at the jerk customers. He reads about how NASA folks get by in zero gravity and ends up downloading Snapchat to keep up with the ISS. Truth is, he has no idea what he’s getting into. He doesn’t even know what Castiel’s spaceship looks like.

It’s just past Easter when Cas picks him up again. As usual, it’s just a fuzzy feeling of lightness that swoops him up and deposits him -

Somewhere else.

“The rest of the ship is adjusted to simulate my atmosphere. You should be able to handle it perfectly well, but I have prepared this place for your comfort,” Cas clicks.

Dean’s first thought is that Cas must have robbed an office or something, because there’s honestly a Sparkletts water dispenser. Six five-gallon bottles sit beside.

“According to my calculations, that will suffice for our journey. There is food, too.”

A five pound sack of flour and sugar are slumped against the water dispenser. There’s a giant jug of canola oil, too. Fat, carbs, sugar - Cas forgot the protein.

“Dude,” Dean tells him. “I have luggage. It’s down in my trailer. You’ll see - there’s a black suitcase. Er. A pack - a - it’s a cloth thing around a metal frame, and there are round little wheels at the bottom and a handle on top. A handle that fits my hand.” There’s baby wipes tucked somewhere inside there. Surplus military rations. Snap-top cans of tuna and chicken breast and even Spam.

Cas glows an embarrassed shade of green, and glides away. For the first time Dean notices how he moves. There is a wall and there is Cas, and then there’s just a wall. The walls are the same reddish grey shade as the floor and the ceiling. After looking for a light source and finding none, Dean realizes that the very material of the structure is what's glowing.

Looking around the room, Dean can see that Cas sure thought of… many things. Not everything. But most of what a human might want for prolonged travel is here. The toilet may be a prison toilet, but at least it’s there. Besides, Dean can’t think of why he should feel shame before a creature that has held his intestines in his tentacles. The bed is large, at least. It looks like Cas may have taken some illegal feathers to festoon it - and now Dean wonders what the hell kind of human media is Cas being exposed to, because there’s actual rose petals scattered haphazardly around the bed. 

Dean wonders what porn looks like to a Celestial, and then abruptly stops thinking about it.

There’s a few random chairs in a few different styles, six boxes of matches, an oddly shaped rock. A dresser covered in scratches and peeling paint is lying on the floor, and top of it is something weird. Something glowing and gelatinous and seriously weird.

Dean gets closer.

Pulsing pseudo organs are arranged on a fungal grid. At least, it looks like fungus. One organ is round and red, one is triangular and green. It’s a Lovecraftian interpretation of those weird kids toys Dean has only seen in hospital waiting rooms.

He presses an odd yellow square, and something _poofs_ out.

The smell hits him first.

Something like nights in the deep South. Dean hasn’t spent too much time there, but one time after six strange lights were spotted over Savannah he went down to smell magnolias at twilight and buttermilk pies. That’s what it smells like.

Now Dean is on the floor, and what looks like cold steel is soft and warm.

The smell fades, and Dean sits back up. Presses the round, red organ.

This is - shit, it must be four years ago. The last time he was in Oregon. It was raining constantly, and he was somewhere outside of Cottage Grove. Musty green woods, the smell of woodfire, the spray of a skunk. Dean feels it in his toes.

If this is what Celestials do for fun, Dean can’t say he isn’t excited.

By the time Cas drops his suitcase Dean is moving into his trailer for the first time. There was the smell of new earth and fertilizer. Cleaning chemicals sprayed from a pressure washer and the fresh stamp of ink. He grins dazedly up at a tentacle.

“I thought you would like that,” Cas buzzes. “But I brought your radio, if you like. I know your species enjoys the audio stimuli.”

As if they’ll be able to get a signal however the fuck many light years away. Laughing, Dean tries to reach for a tentacle. Cas dodges, but then returns, dangling the tentacle over his smiling mouth.

When Dean grabs it, he swears Cas turns every color of the spectrum at once. He touches the tentacle to his chest, feels his ribs tingle in response.

“Thank you,” Dean tells him. “This is perfect.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ please look ](http://spoopernaptime.tumblr.com/post/156604001156/shoutout-to-my-most-ridiculous-story-yet)at how... ridiculous im getting :c

The first few days on the ship, Dean explores everything. On the lower deck is a throbbing blue gel encased in something that isn't glass. Cas calls it gasoline. Like gasoline, it seems to be flammable, but the blue dancing flames that course over the form sometimes leave no residual damage. Cas has his own quarters - the spongy layers on Dean's lungs are the only way he can breathe in the cloying atmosphere. A glowing webbing stretches out in the room, and Cas rolls in it, tentacles resting and dangling between the netting. The main bridge is a soft haze of colors, soft lights peering from hidden alcoves. 

As far as Dean can figure out, whatever the Celestials have going on is light-years away from human technology. There are no windows in the ship and Castiel cannot imagine why Dean would care for one - visual stimuli, apparently, isn’t huge in his species. The wavelengths of light carry more important energy for them. Sure, Castiel can see the shape of Dean, the color of his eyes. Dean asks if a window would be a structural weakness. Cas doesn't seem to understand the question. Between the sonic data and his calculations, he can easily envisage the universe he’s hurtling through.

“This is your galaxy,” Cas says, pointing at a screen of jumping wavelengths that smells like some sharp, strong astringent. 

“So we’re past that, now?” 

“Far past it.”

Dean wriggles deeper into the embrace of tentacles and tries not to think of a little blue-and-green ball. 

The main console of the bridge is nothing but odd holographic lights and portholes for Castiel to stick his tentacles into. Right now, Dean is seated cross-legged on a crimson cloud of something plush and damp, while three of Castiel’s tentacles are devoted to the holes. He’s steering, or communing, or something. Dean has stopped trying to figure it all out. Clearly Cas knows what he's doing.  Meanwhile, the remaining tentacles form a small jungle he can hide in. When they're close like this, they speak in vibrations. When Dean holds a tentacle to his chest, he can feel the sparks on his ribs, a drum against his lungs. When he speaks, his diaphragm beats against his ribs, and the tentacle shudders.

He’s stopped wearing shirts; the affectation meaningless around a creature with no concept of nudity. Dean can walk around naked on the ship if he likes. Sometimes he’ll wear sweatpants; his room is the warmest place on the ship. Outside of Castiel’s tentacles, at least.

“I just wish I could see the stars,” Dean confesses to a tentacle, and Cas strokes the top of his head.

“You will not survive outside my bubble.”

That's what Cas calls the ship. His bubble. Maybe something is mixed up in translation - Dean kind of just automatically puts everything into an English context. The word Cas uses is a lot safer and cozier than the cold lines of steel _spaceship_ evokes. Nest might be better. Burrow. Home.

No. Home is the destination. This is just the passage. From the womb to the world. 

A roving tentacle finds Dean’s lips, probes until Dean takes it in his mouth. It slips smoothly to the back of his throat, and then slides down. 

Dean’s lips are pulled taut, his jaw open as wide as possible. He breathes through his nose, eyes watering, while Cas thrusts inside. The tentacle is warm and wet, growing wetter from saliva. Deeper still it goes, and then it's up and out, past his teeth, over his tongue, and then Dean is gasping, empty.

“You're healing well,” Cas hums.

Dean doesn't ask him to put it back inside. Glistening with saliva, the tentacle curls back around his chest. 

“Dopamine,” Cas notes. “I can smell it in you.” 

“Yeah,” Dean's throat is ragged, but Cas doesn't notice. “That's my happy chemicals.”

“Does it have anything to do with this?” Teasingly, the tentacle comes back up to his lips. “I notice it every time I operate on you. Every time I am inside you.”

Dean fails to stifle a moan. 

“Is this good?” Cas continues. More tentacles swarm across his body, tracing the scar on his torso. “This is a good thing, yes?”

“If I asked you to stop,” Dean says, haltingly, and before he can even finish he’s cold again. All of Castiel’s tentacles bunch up towards his form but still he hovers, waiting. 

“Like this?”

“I don't want you to stop. But if I did, you would. So… yeah. This is a good thing.”

“You feel good,” Cas clicks, wrapping Dean up again. “You feel good, and you feel good to hold.”

“So we’re winning, right?”

“We will win. When you speak to the Cloud, we will win.”

The Cloud. Dean doesn’t have Castiel’s confidence - not yet. “No, no. I just meant you, me, this. We’re…”

“Good.”

“Awesome.”

“I, too,” Cas says, glowing a soft shade of pink, “am filled with awe.”

“Thanks, buddy.”

Cas hisses some sort of filler word Dean can't quite get the hang of. Dean wonders if he used the wrong term - he was going for something casual. Friendly. Low-key. _Buddy_. 

“Buddy,” Cas replies, but the way he puts it, it almost sounds sacred.

  
  


Time is hard to track on the ship. Dean sleeps when he’s tired. The Sparkletts machine’s hot water dispenser is a blessing, but he forgot to bring any coffee. Drinking plain hot water at least helps him feel like he’s in the routine, at least. He forgot a razor as well, and the growing scruff on his face is one of his only ways to keep track of time.  His morning routine has expanded to include Cas, now. As soon as he  senses Dean is awake he glides through to check Dean’s vitals in a slippery tangle of tentacles. Asks if he’s doing well on water, wonders why Dean hasn’t eaten from the sack of flour he so thoughtfully provided. 

Ever since Dean called him buddy, though, he’s gotten more careful. Now Dean sees light trickle beneath his door in the morning. Cas asks his _buddy_ before he enters. His tentacles, always cautious and gentle, stroke him with a feather-light touch. 

“Buddy,” Dean tells him, and Cas glows green and pink. “Buddy,” Dean calls down the halls of the ship, and Cas appears instantly. _Buddy_ is the last word he hears before he goes to bed, the first word he hears in the morning. 

“I have never had a buddy,” Cas finally tells him one night. “You are my first.”

A tentacle glides across Dean’s cheek, and leaves him shivering. 

It's kind of an honor, being Castiel's buddy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're reading this, i'm wondering.
> 
> how would y'all feel if dean and cas went to... the next level? is that sentient bestiality or what? what territory are we in, and how silly do i sound worrying about a tentacle finding an extra orifice when i've already written graphic guro?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your thoughts on the smut, y'all. well, this is the smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont write much porn and of course when i do it's guro alien tentacle sex ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

There’s certain things Dean can lie to himself about for the rest of his life. 

Example one: his father was a good man. Dean knows this because he remembers the calluses on his hands. He also remembers his mother despondent at the kitchen table and shouting on the other end of a line, but then it didn’t matter anymore because Dad died in a drunken car crash and there was nothing left to do but honor the memory. 

Example two: his little brother needs him. Sam is stuck in the rat trap pursuing a fruitless degree, and he’s gonna get disillusioned on that shit real quick. And when the Celestials go public, he’s gonna wish he had listened to his big brother.

Example three is still a half-faded memory, a waking dream buried deep. Dean wakes up sticky on his giant feathered-and-rose-petaled bed and longing for something he can’t even speak aloud.

He just watches his buddy drift into the room. He just feels the tentacles on his arm. He just tries to see something revolting in the entire alien-ness and otherness of Castiel. 

And then his dick gets hard and he can’t lie about it anymore.

It’s not like Dean has ever felt much shame about sex but Cas is - Cas isn’t - Cas doesn’t even have a single human organ or hormone in his body. Dean feels weird even assigning the male pronoun to him, to her, whatever. Maybe the name Castiel just sounds masculine to him. 

  
The thing is, Cas is soft and curious and electric and probably reproduces by budding or cloud-seeding or some other weird psychedelic shit. So Dean can’t help but feel a little dirty when he’s cuddling tentacles and wishing, wondering, waiting for one of those probing organs to enter him. 

Well, they’ve entered him before. Just not through the orifice Dean usually prefers. And Dean's a human and Cas is so emphatically _not_.

Humans are different. Humans use sex to abuse and hurt. There’s a whole host of weirdness that comes to sex and Dean doesn’t even know how to broach the subject with a god damn alien jellyfish. But then there’s the rose petals on the bed. Castiel probably isn’t as innocent as Dean thinks. With his intimate knowledge of Dean’s body, there’s no way he doesn’t know what a prostrate or a penis is.

Not to mention the whole _buddy_ thing.

God, but Dean probably called him his mate or something weird.

Yeah, and Cas went with it.

There isn't time to worry about awkward boners, though. It's certainly hard to be aroused they're talking about the future of the human race. 

Cas tells Dean not to worry about it. 

Dean has seen movies like this, where it all came down to humans proving the worth of their existence. It was love, or pain, or the human capacity for emotion, or something. And that sounds good, until Cas wraps him tenderly in tentacles and Dean realizes that maybe the capacity for emotion isn't that progressive or exciting to his kind. 

They're scientists and gardeners. Maybe they can appreciate terraforming. Humans build mounds and pyramids and pour cement over the same soil that grows their food. 

But that's what made them pests, right? 

So it's either existential crisis or boner crisis. No wonder all Dean wants to do is burrow in Castiel. Trust him when he says he has a plan, that Dean doesn't need to worry. 

“I can't help it,” Dean tells him, some moment somewhere on the timeline. “That's my whole world, you know? And I just - I don't know if I'm -”

Tentacles spark. They've had this discussion before.

To say that Dean isn't worthy of this mission is to insult Castiel’s intelligence. To spit on the time Cas has devoted to him. 

Thing is, Dean still isn't sure why Cas chose him. Funny how he can trust Castiel’s judgement in everything but this. 

“My brother’s down there,” Dean says lamely. 

“He will be safe.”

“If this doesn't work - we’re gonna go down, and we’re gonna get him.”

“Do not speak of ifs,” Cas says. “Only what will be.”

“I don't know what will be.”

“Only what you choose to manifest.”

“So - So what? Don't talk about it?”

“You trust me with your most vital organs. Trust me in this.”

And there it is. Dean's blushing, he knows he is. 

“Speaking of which,” Cas continues, “I’d like to check on your lungs.”

A tentacle slips up to his mouth. Dean exhales and every tension flees his body, leaving him lighter than air. 

Cas carries him, through the damp musk of darkened halls, and finally to a small door. 

It's the room. The operating room. Dean’s belly quivers at the sight of the table. 

  
  
  


If Cas thought this would help Dean shut up and stop worrying about the pesticide bombs, he was right. And Dean can’t even hold it against him. Not when he can look down and see those tentacles wet with blood, worming between his intestines to touch the shell of his torso. 

His lungs are fine. His lungs were fine an hour ago. But then Cas brushed one sensitive rib and Dean pulsed out signals of want and need and now they're here, Cas buzzing softly to himself while he cradles Dean's guts. 

“My lungs,” Dean tells him. “Check them again,” and Cas slides back up, beneath his ribs, as Dean inflates and deflates against him. From there it's easy to slip through, to the heart.

The moment Cas reaches the heart, Dean's legs jerk on the table.

A tentacle hovers over his thigh, wondering. 

Dean’s ribs cry please-please-please. They haven't done that yet, they haven't been there yet, and if they cross into this territory - maybe -

The muscles of his thigh are a wonder to see, rippling and red. Blood-streaked subcutaneous fat clusters in his inner thigh, while the tendons catch Castiel’s light.

“Beautiful,” Cas rumbles. Latching suckers onto a muscle, the message vibrates into Dean’s hips.

Dean's face is burning. His left leg is a new animal entirely, quivering beyond his control. 

And then Cas turns a teal sort of blue and angles up, just a bit. 

“I'm sorry I have no eggs for you,” Cas says, except he’s saying it directly to Dean’s cock. Which was already hard. With vibrations. 

Fucking hell, but Dean forgets to use his alien voice. The touch, that soft electric touch vibrating through his dick. He’s never, ever, ever going to feel that way with anything else. And Cas doesn't even know what the hell he's doing.

“Don't need no eggs,” he pants. “But if you - God, Cas, please - “

“Touching it is correct. Yes?”

“Yeah. But -” and Dean stops himself because. 

The whole sex thing. 

Right.

“We designed the reproduction systems of carbon-based life forms to simulate our own budding nature. When we return to the cloud and form again, we are never quite the same entity. Mixing your DNA, physically, seems inelegant, but -” and Cas reaches for Dean again, wrapping him in a tight, smooth grip. Dean is going to have to come listening to a biology lecture. “I find a beauty in it.”

“Yeah? You watch - you ever see us do it?”

“I prefer to watch the plants reproduce. Their sexual organs have a unique aesthetic to them, echoing the helium seas of my planet.” 

“Tighter,” Dean says. “With a rhythm. That's - oh, fuck - Cas,” and it's too much, too far, and Dean doesn't want to come like this. 

“But,” Cas continues, “for you humans, the act seems… different. I never understood your species who use it for no purpose. The dolphins, your jungle cousins. Are you teaching me why? Your endorphins are rushing. I can smell you, Dean. Would you like - what would you like? I regret not having eggs.”

Panting, Dean looks up at him. Cas is green and pink again, but there's a rich purple coming through, and sparks dance within his form. 

“Do you know what the prostate is?”

Cas makes a click, like of course. Dean grabs a bloody tentacle, curls it against his open chest. 

“Please.”

 

 

Dean has to talk Cas through it a bit. Yes, the tentacle will fit - only one of them, though. Cas vibrates against his rim and Dean nearly loses it right then and there. 

He needs Cas inside of him, right the fuck now. Inside his chest and inside his ass and down his throat. If Cas could remove his eyes, he'd let Cas fuck the sockets. Everything needs to be full of Cas - everything needs to be writhing tentacles and warmth, filling every space possible until he and Cas are one and Dean can be safe in the spaces within his form.

A sheet of hot, sticky blood coats the tentacle Cas works inside of him. Dean's got open arms and an open chest full of bloody tentacles, and he can taste something meaty, some scrap of his own flesh. All the while Cas is stretching him, the tentacle thinning and lengthening, then suddenly growing thicker and firmer. The deeper he goes the more Dean loses his shit. The tentacles in his chest are tickling and buzzing, taking him to new edges and then back again, drawing him closer to the edge of some impossibly tall cliff. Cas wiggles against his liver while another tentacle slips inside his mouth, and then he's full, stretched, hollowed out around the entirely of Castiel. Cas slips in and out, timing the thrusts of the one in his mouth to the one in the ass, while the extra tentacles caress his organs and play sparkling songs on his ribs and it's the universe coalescing down to a single point of raw pleasure and sound and - 

Fuck, but Cas is ruining Dean for humanity. 

Dean rocks feebly against him, trying to set up a rhythm, and then Cas finds the sweet spot. The one that leaves Dean shaking and shuddering and higher than should be fucking possible. Every gasping breath scrapes against his ribs. He’s speaking two languages at once, pleading and begging for more, harder, fuck -

Buried inside of him, Cas decides to tremble out Dean’s name, and that's it. Dean is gone, officially out of this fucking universe and on the astral plane.

Then he's back, coated in blood and come as Cas delicately closes him back up. 

“Buddy,” Cas says. “Was that right?”

His own laughter surprises him. He can't believe what he’s about to say, but -

“That was perfect. Thanks, buddy.”

“Are you sufficiently relaxed?”

His limbs are lazy, his blood is honey. “Yep.”

“Good. We are near our destination. It is essential,” Cas says, drawing tentacles down Dean’s flanks, “that you remain calm.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooo thoughts, critique, anything?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yes i had a nother thousand words of alien sex, im sorry i kept it from you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i know, two updates in one day, well i already had this part sitting round and i just am going all out here, i've already smashed through the floodgates and unleashed the tentacle sex

The scientist in Dean is quietly losing his shit. If only his subscribers could see what he’s seeing.

They’ve landed in a sculpted moonscape of soft loam that his feet sink into, the horizon rounded with sloping hills of red and orange. A pale mist settles over the land, and Dean can vaguely see the glow of the moons he saw in Castiel’s memory. His chest tingles, the new organs in his lungs hard at work. 

Before him stands a tall, crystalline tree that smells like old growth forests and compost bins. Not quite a tree, more like a mushroom doing a clever charade. It almost resembles the netting in Castiel’s quarters on the ship. 

“My home,” Castiel says. He wraps two tentacles around Dean, and they simply float up into a glowing network of colors Dean can’t quite catch. Dean is cradled in a gossamer web of thick, soft branches. 

“That mist,” Dean asks. “Is that the Cloud?”

“The Cloud sees all,” Cas says. “Even now, the Cloud greets you.”

“I wanna -” and Dean sits up, looking through the tangling web at the spongy earth below. “Can we go see them? Can we walk around? There’s so much stuff I wanna see, I just -”

“You can. You will.”

“Now,” Dean says.

“You are not tired?” 

“No! Are you kidding me? I just landed on a foreign planet.”

Cas seems bemused, but he lifts Dean into his tentacles again. “What would you like to do?”

“Do you guys have water here? You mentioned - helium seas. I wanna see those first.”

Cas makes an amused gurgle, and floats him back down. “You cannot travel as we do.” 

“That’s fine. These feet ain’t let me down yet.”

But walking is hard. Dean goes maybe thirty steps before he bends over, panting. Suddenly he’s so tired, his eyes closing without his consent. Tentacles are there, though, and Cas softly clucks over him when he wraps a fat tentacle around himself. 

“You’re exhausted. Sleep. I will carry you.”

“Can’t sleep,” Dean mutters. He’s the worst fucking UFOlogist in the world right now. No, he was the worst UFOlogist when he had sex with Cas. Not that he's particularly bothered by that, especially once he looks up to the seas and it's wilder than anything he and Cas might get up to.

A breeze stirs painted fog below the seas. Now Dean knows what Cas meant by comparing them to flowers - they drift in the atmosphere like giant petals, unfurling and vibrant like a Georgia O’Keefe painting, forming foaming towers in the sky. Rare stars peek through. Dean sits down, the soft earth welcoming him, and takes it all in while Cas curls around him.

Other Celestials are here. Dean sees the same variety he noticed in Castiel’s memory - some like popped corn, some like Lovecraftian nightmares, some like magnifications of a Cambrian fantasy. Conversation pings across the sky, electric tendrils scattering like lightning. A pink nautilus of sorts drifts past, a thousand lights spinning inside their form. 

“Castiel,” one says. “What is this thing?”

“My buddy,” Cas replies.

“Um. Hello? I’m Dean.”

A ball of lightning explodes in the sky. A Celestial drifts closer, thousands of vermicelli tentacles trailing behind. “It speaks?”

Dean tries not to get offended at the it. After all, that’s what he thought of Castiel for ages. “Yep. Cas here taught me all I know.”

“You see, Anael. They are quick to learn.”

“I can see that." A tentacle drifts towards Dean’s face - much thinner than Castiel’s, the suckers barely forming a ridge on the underside. “What have you done, bringing this one here? How does it - was this ordered by the Cloud?”

“Of course not.” Cas clucks. “And I told you. They have potential.”

“He is your buddy.”

“Yes.”

“You think the Cloud will respect that?”

“He is my buddy.”

Anael drifts a tentacle over Dean’s hair. Dean is frozen, watching their light. “Cas is my buddy,” he says, maybe too fiercely considering this is the second Celestial he’s ever met. “And I’m here to speak to the Cloud.”

“I suppose you are.” Anael clicks something remorseful through her suckers, and slowly drifts away. 

“Don’t let them bother you,” Cas says. “You are something of a shock.”

“I don’t mind.” Dean’s spent his whole life - the part that matters, at least - not giving a damn about what others think. 

The other Celestials are drawing back, he notices, arcing away from him and Castiel. Dean would like to stand up and take a piss right in front of them all, but Cas is holding him down and, frankly, Cas is the only one who matters. 

These other guys want to destroy his planet, for fuck’s sake. 

“When can we speak to the Cloud?”

“I told you. They are still greeting you.”

“Greeting, what does that mean?”

“The Cloud smells you. The Cloud tastes you. The Cloud sees all,” Cas says. “Would you like to see more, now?”

  
  
  
  


Cas carries Dean over calcified mountains painted in ribbons of quartz, past floating seas of plasma, through slippery forests of twisted monoliths reaching arms to the sky. Beneath a cloud of pink mist that clings to Dean’s skin, atop a glimmering moss of sponges, Cas strokes a tentacle across Dean’s lips.

“You want to -” Dean asks, and they’re off. 

Cas is careful this time, outside of the safety of the operating room. Dean doesn’t need be cut open, not this time. All he wants is for Cas to melt over him again, to carry him further into the dream of this landscape. Dean comes too soon, the sensation of Cas vibrating against his cock too much to handle. 

He wants more. He can take more. Cas wonders, but ejaculation isn’t necessarily the end-all and be-all of this. Lust is a fire, Dean tries to explain, something that stretches under his skin.

“I’ll never understand this,” Cas says, but he sounds amused and his tentacle is playing against Dean’s rim. “But - you’re beautiful like this.”

“Do you like this?”

“I do.”

“But how do you feel?” Dean presses.

Cas crackles, searching for the right thing to say. “Good. Powerful. Like you are my precious buddy, and I desire only to make you happy.”

That’s pretty good, all things considered. “I feel - I feel safe,” Dean says. 

“With me?”

“With you.”

“You are my buddy, Dean. You will always be safe with me.”

Sometime Dean is going to have to ask what exactly that word means. But for now, Cas is curling around his cock and slipping past his entrance, and there’s nothing to do but fall into the touch. The same fluid Cas squirted down Dean’s throat once coats his insides, lubricating the tentacle as he stretches and tenses inside of Dean. Every time the tentacle pulses, Dean shudders. He wonders if Cas could fit more than one inside his ass. He’d like for him to try, but he has to speak with his lungs, considering Cas is also stuffed down his throat. 

Another tentacle presses alongside the first, and it’s almost too much. But Cas goes slow, coaxing his rim to do the impossible. Even as he goes, another tentacle curls around the tip of his cock, rubbing in the slit, and Dean never even taught Cas how to do that. 

“Want you inside me,” Dean says, speaking with his ribs. 

“I already am.” Cas uses the suckers inside his throat to spell it out. 

“No - I mean - I mean - “

“I know, I know,” and Cas’s speech is rushed, too quick and panicked. It thrills Dean to feel that, like he’s driving Cas just as wild as Cas drives him. Dean rolls his hips against him, arches his back up into the tentacles, uses the suckers inside his throat to tell the tentacle there just how good a job it’s doing at fucking him. “I don’t have anything for pain,” Cas says, playing with Dean’s navel like he’s about to fuck right through it. “

“Should’ve - fuck,” Dean moans, pushing up into it. All he can think about is Cas slitting open his belly, blood painting Castiel in new shades, and then he’s coming again, spurting between tentacles, 

After, when Cas floats down beside him to draw tentacles through his come, Dean rolls over to look at him. 

Cas glows brighter on his own planet. He carries himself easier, sliding naturally through the atmosphere. When Dean reaches for him his hand drags clumsily through the air. But Cas catches it, pulls him closer. 

Even if Dean closes his eyes, Cas doesn’t feel anything like a human, and that just might be the best part. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pulls a 360 and moonwalks away*


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have had an older version of this up for like an hour last night whoops whoops

After, in a sea of foamy pink fog, Cas nuzzles into Dean's hips. “Has the Cloud contacted you yet?”

“...No? Is that - how is that gonna happen?”

“You will know.”

“Tell me about the Cloud. So it’s the big boss here, right?”

“The Cloud is not a singular entity.” 

“All right, so, what is it?” Dean rolls over so that he’s lying on top of Cas. It’s a bit firmer than a waterbed, and Cas forms a nest of tentacles above him. Strange mists dance inside a gelatinous form and Dean wonders what it would taste like.

“The Cloud is the Cloud. Where all conscious life begins and where it will end.”

“And by that, you mean you.”

“All of my kind. See, in this form, I am a closed system. But the Cloud is an open one.”

“Is it - so it’s like, the collective unconscious?”

“The Cloud is highly conscious. But yes, it is the collective. And occasionally, elements manifest into fragments of ego. Like me. The individual separates to plant gardens, to research, and so build the knowledge base of the Cloud. When I reach maximum entropy, my ego will dissipate, and all my data on your species will be collected in the Cloud. And you, Dean, will live forever.”

“You mean the memory of me.”

“I have known every part of you, Dean. What am I but my memories?” Cas runs a tentacle through his hair. “In the Cloud, you may be as alive as you are now, eons after your death.”

“A ghost in the machine.”

“As we all shall be.”

“This is kind of a trip, Cas.”

“The journey is no great distance.”

Dean chuckles down at him. “That’s not what I meant, but okay.”

It is a little weird to think about, but it isn’t any weirder than some of the shit that goes down on the philosophical subforums. Dean has read his Terence McKenna, he’s smoked enough DMT. Beneath him, Cas vibrates gently against Dean’s ribs. Seized by an impulse, Dean kisses the form beneath him, and Cas flushes green. So Dean kisses him again, creating a pattern of soft glows wherever his lips land.

“How is this?” Dean asks. The green is generally a good sign.

“It’s… funny.”

“Are you ticklish?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Is it okay, though? Do you like it?”

“I do.”

Dean kisses him again. A tentacle rolls across his face, rubbing around his eyes, tickling his nose. Dean laughs again. Cas seems to like the noise, even if he can’t make it himself.

“So,” Dean asks. “What makes you think I can convince an entire planet that I’m worth saving?”

“You already convinced me.”

“You’re silly.” Dean noses a tentacle, tasting the suckers. Tries not to think about collective souls. It’s odd to think that Cas is a part of that. Given form and ego and tentacles Dean likes to touch. So the question is - did he have sex with an entire planet?

And there it is.

Something is pressing inside his head, tingling at his ribs. Something is calling him. Cas seems aware of it, too. He holds back Dean with a tentacle and regards him perhaps somberly, perhaps hopefully.

It’s time.

The pink mist that surrounded them coalesces into a wisp. A deep thrumming sounds from overhead. Dean looks up, and sees the Cloud.

Cloud is an apt description. A million voices singing, a thousand sparks dancing. Like a human brain turned inside out, with all the neurons lit up and glowing. Beneath the descending majesty, Dean’s bones rattle with the symphony. There’s dried semen on his belly and sweat on his cheeks, and above him the Cloud trembles.

But Dean has the words, now.

“Hello,” he says, and the Cloud’s greeting trickles down his skin like an electric rain.

“The Voice from the Void,” it says.

Dean looks to Castiel. “Is that me?”

“Of course, we caught your radio signals,” Cas says. “That’s what got my attention, at least.”

Dean thinks of some of his more ridiculous podcasts. At least they wouldn’t have understood the words - until Cas came along. 

Still. His little radio show reached the cosmos. Dean did that. Years of work and research and he actually did it - he _ made fucking contact _ . That’s nothing short of a miracle.

“It speaks,” the Cloud thrums.

“Of course I do. And my name’s Dean.”

“You are the Voice. Has all of your species achieved the gnosis, or are you an outlier?”

“Well - I guess I’m pretty special. Cas here taught me everything I know.”

Cas looks at Dean, something like worry etched in the arcs of light.  

“Castiel’s work on carbon-based life was deemed absurd by us” the Cloud drones. “And yet here it is, and there it speaks. Speak again, creature.”

“What do you want me to say?”

The Cloud vibrates. Tendrils drift down from the form to wrap around Dean, seeping into his nostrils and down his throat. “We see the seeds of ourselves in it. Is this your work, Castiel?”

“It is,” Cas says. The tentacle burns like a soldering iron, hovering over Dean’s chest. “May I show them?”

“But - your serums and stuff -”

“There is neither pain nor death within the Cloud.”

“What?” Dean asks, but already the Cloud is all he can taste, all he can feel. Dean is fuzzy, blurring outside the lines of his body. A hundred voices chatter at him, soothing him. Every neuron is primed to reach out and up, to join with the Cloud in some eternal dance of consciousness.

If Cas needs to cut him open, well. 

It’s the fate of the earth at stake. 

“Go ahead, then.”

With quick precision, Cas slices down his middle. Peeling back the layers of flesh, he displays his work. The Cloud mists over his lungs, tasting the grafted flesh. Dean can taste it in his own throat, the distinct flavor of his own blood.

“You see how well he has healed.” Cas strokes the honeycomb flesh. “Look how easily he adapts. The human species is uniquely impressive in it’s ability to change. To adapt. To grow beyond the limits of their own planet.”

“To destroy the Garden.”

“Not to destroy. They are doing their own work, in their own way.”

“But in such a short time, they have done nearly irreversible damage. Thirty thousand cycles, is it?”

“Must I bring up the ancient history of our earliest Gardens?”

The Cloud breathes into Dean’s lungs, watching them inflate. “Already your grafts seem original to the body. How old is this human? How soon will it die?”

“Very soon.”

“I’m thirty-three,” Dean says. “Thirty-three cycles around my sun. If I’m lucky, I may live to another fifty. Maybe that’s not long to you, but it’s enough for me. I did make it here, after all.”

“You see?” Castiel shimmers down with pride. “Their short lifespans are a blessing. Just the past two thousands years alone, they’ve managed to change their planet's atmosphere, even to alter the balance of their seas. And they thrive, everywhere. In dry lands, in temperatures that would kill them. What we are looking at, with humanity, is the conclusion of our entire body of research, albeit on a much smaller scale. The speed alone is beyond anything we have seen before. I have often declared Earth is the catalyst to the next stage of our own evolution, and the tenacity of humanity only proves my point.

“Now look at this one. Speaking with us. Walking among us. These creatures operate on a similar level of intelligence to our own, even achieving our own levels of consciousness. We operate in the macrocosm, but they dominate the microcosm. Humanity is a product of our creation - unforetold, perhaps, and surprising. But we cannot ignore it, and to destroy it would be, in my opinion, a tragedy in our own history.”

“His continued survival here is, indeed, a miracle.”

“It is science.”

“We have other Gardens,” the Cloud admits. “Our explorations in carbon-based life are admittedly lacking. We do not know what to expect. Perhaps we should be more open.”

“Yes, exactly.” Dean sits up, chest flapping open. “My species - we might have screwed some things up. But that’s the learning process. And - hell, if I can learn to speak like you, live like you - we might even have some things to learn from you. To take better care of your Garden. Right?”

The Cloud sighs, vibrating against Dean’s ribs. The old song strikes up a faint strain. “We see. Castiel, if you wish to continue your studies, we shall allow it. Your work on this human is indeed interesting.”

“You should’ve seen us when we first ventured into space,” Dean says. “Giant suits and stuff like that.” Dean gestures to his naked body. “So, I’ve kind of come a long way already.”

The Cloud vibrates gently, burrowing beneath his lungs. “We did see you land on your moon. A futile exercise, but impressive for one of your planet.”

“And the pesticide -“ Cas starts.

“Would only impede your work.”

Dean feels it when the Cloud starts to withdraw. Before the pain hits, Cas is there, sealing him up and drawing him close. 

“Well done,” Castiel says.

“That’s it?” 

“That’s it.”

"Nice work, buddy."

The Cloud, drifting into the seas above, pauses. “Buddy?” it repeats, softly.

Tentacles swarm over Dean, subsonic frequencies shuddering each sucker. “Yes. My buddy.”

Pale wavelengths of shock ripple throughout the Cloud. “You use an archaic term.”

“I do.”

“Is this part of your evolution, Castiel?”

“It is a part of the Cloud’s.”

The Cloud withdraws. Scurries of mist dart out across the skies, melting into the seas. The pink fog resettles itself, creeping curiously up Dean’s legs. 

“See?” Castiel asks. “It was a simple request.”

“Yeah. Just deciding the fate of my entire species, no big deal.”

Cas makes a sweet clucking sound, draping tentacles over Dean. “You are very small in the eternal eyes of the Cloud.”

“It said… what did it mean by archaic?”

“Ever since we formed the Cloud, interpersonal relationships are… nonexistent, compared to what they once were. We are all one. And -” Cas buzzes static, hesitating. “During our time together - I feel - that is, the sum of my ego and yours - in the space between our bodies - the communications we have established -“

“I know. And I like you too, Cas.”

Dean says it like a human.

Cas trembles against him.

  
  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey this could've been part of last chapter

They linger on Castiel’s planet for a few more days.

Dean doesn’t know what to do next.

Cas lets him use some of his equipment. Dean takes samples of the helium seas, chisels tiny crystals from mountains, cuts slices of the gelatinous earth. Other Celestials float curiously around him while he’s trying to work. Getting approval from the Cloud means everyone else has to be okay with him. They tell him stories of the first Gardens, of planets crusted over with ancient lava flows and jungles of eternally combusting trees.

Sometimes, the Cloud hovers above him. Sometimes, the Cloud clings to him and whispers the secrets of energy to him. The Cloud plays with his neurons and shows him cosmic delight and terror. A black hole swallowing a galaxy. Crystalline intelligences mating in a blur of color.

In return, Dean shares his memories. When he was a kid and broke his arm in a bike crash. The angles of his bones visible beneath the skin. The creases in his father’s hands, the veins on his mother’s. The Cloud is fascinated by the memories of his mother still pregnant with Sam, swelling belly hidden under gossamer gowns. 

“Species that only birth one per litter seem so inefficient."

"Humans are too big for that. We gotta let our brains spend time in there."

"We did studies, once, on first internal pregnancies. We thought parent and bud might share a reflection of our own conscious networks."

"You'd be into identical twins, I bet. I've heard some weird stuff about a shared consciousness. Between - womb-kindred, I guess? But mammal birth is nothing like budding. The whole process is kind of bloody and gross, to be honest."

“Creation is never revolting.”

“I saw a baby cow get born once.”

“Cow?”

Then Dean has to try to explain the degradation of the aurochs, and it turns into the gastronomic history of humanity. From hunting and gathering to nomadic herding to planting seeds. The Cloud slips inside of him and explores his intestines, marveling at the bacteria in his guts. Some things the Cloud already knows, from previous Celestials who eventually returned. Through the Cloud, Dean sees monolithic fungi towering over bushy ferns. The feathers of a Tyrannosaurs, a whale lumbering to dry land. A wooly mammoth studded with wooden stakes.

It was the tools that first made the Celestials wonder. It was the little apes gaping up at the aliens hovering over their planet that led them to withdraw. Later reports on humanity are muddled snapshots. Cities being built. Rivers filled with waste. Wars waged, trees felled, the propensity to worship. “We suspect that was our fault,” the Cloud admits. “The first glimpses humanity witnessed stirred something in you. But even in other Gardens when species attain some spiritual sense, we had never seen it as a motivation for war.”

“It’s not always like that,” Dean says. “You only really run into that with the ones what have some patriarchal hierarchy where God tells you to kill your own kid as a test of faith. But there's like, you know. Those shroom messiahs and the pagans and all those cool people. There's even people who believe in you. They think you're out there, watching us. Killing our cows and putting sticks up our asses - and you know what? They love you for it.”

When the Cloud laughs, the skies seem to shake.

Cas has been spending a lot of time with the Cloud, too, in conversations Dean isn't privy to. He doesn't come around much during the day, leaving Dean to explore as he will. At night, though, Castiel always returns to Dean and the tree. The nights here are never quite dark. All light is filtered and muggy through the atmosphere, but the twin moons are closer than the star. Castiel’s tentacles glow purple in the moonlight. Dean falls asleep to blurry psychedelic patterns, suckers undulating and warping. The cycles are longer here, but Dean forgot to bring a watch.

When Cas tells him it's time to leave, Dean is balls deep in a soft, loamy sediment that seems to like his skin. It certainly leaves it smoother. Dean just stares at him for a moment before realizing -

Right. Of course. Back to Earth.

 

 

  
In the soft confines of his room, Dean lies on his bed and thinks about the sharp, bright lines of Earth.

In the control room, Dean leans against the wall rather than nestle inside Cas.

In the halls, he avoids the one leading to the laboratory.

Whatever Castiel’s research entails, his experiments on Dean are finished.

Dean did it. He went to some brave new world and helped save his own. He’s going to go back to his trailer and enjoy his hard bed and dry air and everything will just seem so much smaller for a while.

So he'll be fine, and Cas will be fine, and maybe he’ll start dating again and feel underwhelmed by the mendacity of the human body.

So he’ll go to that online dildo shop and buy a stupid silicone tentacle. Dean will get sad and drunk and fuck himself silly on fake tentacles and probably end up electrocuting himself just to get a taste of what Cas gives him.

And then Dean has to go lie on his rose-petal-strewn bed and realize what he’s done to himself. Telling Cas that he liked him was the first mistake.

When Cas drifts after him, calling him buddy, the suckers in Dean’s throat swell and try to choke him.

“You're not happy,” Cas tells him.

“Of course I'm happy. I'm going home.”

A tentacle reaches for Dean, then draws back at his flinch.

“You can visit again, if you like,” Cas says. “There will be many opportunities. The Cloud welcomes you as the ambassador of your kind, and you will always have a room prepared on my ship. Although - you must remind me to stock better food for you.”

“Yeah,” Dean says hurriedly. “Giant bag of raw sugar? Not exactly food. I’d like to see you in a grocery store. I'll take you to Wilco and let you scare the shit out of everybody.”

“I wouldn’t like to witness a mass defecation,” Cas says, and Dean howls laughing, pulling the tentacles back to him, kissing little suckers as they trawl over his face.

“I want - I would enjoy -” Cas starts.

“You wanna -?”

Shuddering, Cas scoops Dean up in his arms. “I like being inside you. And even if - even if you're fully healed and need no surgeries, I don't want to stop making you feel good.”

“Christ,” Dean says, not bothering to translate. Eyes shut tight and growing damp, he presses one more kiss. “Don't ever stop, Cas.”

Cas slips a tentacle deep, distending Dean’s throat. Moaning, Dean tries to rub up against him, rut against one tentacle while another slides against his ass. Somehow, fumbling against each other, they make it to the laboratory. Cas drops Dean on the table, grabs a syringe, and then hovers, trembling.

“Come on, buddy. Cut me open. Let me feel you.” Dean might be begging. Hard and blushing and desperate.

Cas takes one look at him and _pounces_.

Laughing, Dean lets Cas take charge. Suckers cling to his cock, soft and vibrating. Writhing tentacles, slippery and eager, lick everywhere; one particularly enthusiastic one slaps his ass once, twice, before dipping in. Cas cuts him low enough so that Dean can see it when Cas fucks him, impossibly deep and excruciatingly slow. The tentacle down his throat scrapes in the inner walls of his belly, rocking him back and forth. All the while the suckers on his face vibrate, and it shouldn't sound so filthy when Cas calls Dean an exemplar of his species. It shouldn't drive him so fucking wild when Cas calls him a good human, so good. Cas doesn't even seem aware that he's dirty-talking. That term wouldn't even translate in his language. And it's still the hottest thing Dean has ever heard during sex, because he's just that ruined.  

Dean is getting delirious by the time Cas manhandles him over, two tentacles holding his organs up. Dean tries to brace himself on the blood-slick table while Cas finally picks up the pace, driving into his prostate. Fucks him faster, harder, until he’s choking on screams and finally incoherent and endless.

Then Cas lifts him up again, tenderly hissing. “I will never be finished with you, Dean.”

Dean musters a smile, and promptly passes out.


	12. Chapter 12

The first morning back on Earth, Dean’s door doesn’t open.

He was teleported safely back to bed, woke up naked on top of the sheets. Real and truly naked. On Earth it was suddenly noticeable. Dean threw on sweatpants and a shirt and cuddled back under the sheets. So he’d slept, and woken, and realized he had no food in the house and had to go back to reality at some point. 

Cas forgot his suitcase. There were still some tins of Spam in there.

Now the door doesn’t open. Frowning, Dean shoves again. Something rattles - and what the fuck, there’s a brand new padlock. On the outside.

Dean paid his rent two months in advance, just in case. If his landlord is trying to fuck with him - 

“Hey!” Someone is shouting from outside. “I’m calling the cops!”

Someone sounds a hell of a lot like Sam. 

“Sam? Sam - what the fuck - “ and Sam makes a weird choking sound. The lock is fiddled with and dropped, and then Sam Winchester in all his eight feet of earnest annoying glory is there gaping. 

“What - what - what, did you spend the past month locked in your dishwasher?”

“I just got back from the… the trip. To Yucatan.”

“You’re a liar,” Sam snaps. “You’re a liar. You have a fucking satellite phone, Dean! And Mom tried to call you six times! And then I go out here and all your neighbors say you’ve been being all trippy and going for longs walks at night and seriously, Dean? Yeah. You went to the fucking Yucatan peninsula without a wallet or a phone or anything. With some… what, like some traveling expat scholar or whatever, Jesus.”

“So what - fuck, did you call the cops?”

“Of course I called the cops!” 

“Sam - “

“Don’t start with me. God dammit, Dean. I - I’ve been hanging around here trying to work with the local cops and get info from your neighbors. I’ve called every hospital in the state. And I had to put a fucking padlock on your door so that all your fancy radio equipment wouldn’t get stolen.” Sam wags a shaky finger at Dean. “Just - let’s just - let’s just go inside and sit down, I’m gonna call Mom, it’s fine. And when Mom gets here? You tell us everything.”

Sam pushes past him. His hair is all sloppy and greasy, like he’s been running his hands through it constantly. He huffs when he sees the inside of Dean’s trailer again, turns back to Dean with bright eyes. 

“I know, I know,” Dean tells him. “I scared the shit out of you guys and I’m sorry, but I swear -”

Something drops to the ground behind him. Sam slowly straightens, takes a step back.

“Your suitcase,” Castiel says. 

“Holy Jesus shit,” Sam whispers.

Dean turns and looks at the giant jellyfish floating in his apartment. He waves. He swallows.

“Hey, Cas.”

“The fucking hell,” says Sam. 

“This is Sam, my brother. Sam, Castiel.” Dean knows he’s got a shit-eating grin when he looks back at Sam, but damn. “He’s one of those aliens I kept telling you about.”

There’s no chair behind Sam, but he sits anyways. Dean leaves the door open; the kid probably needs the fresh air.

  
  


Mom reaches for her hip when she sees Castiel, and she doesn’t even have a gun. On the couch, Sam is already inspecting Castiel’s tentacles. Cas is hovering pleasantly, crooning while imitating English for Sam’s benefit. 

“Dean is very nice,” Cas says. “I am happy to meet his womb.”

“Mother, Cas. Her name’s Mary.”

“Maree,” Cas repeats. “And Sam. Your humans are beautiful, Dean.”

“Say hi, Mom. This is Castiel.”

She shakes her head. “Dean. This is - “

“It’s Castiel. He’s not from around here, so be nice.”

“This is what you do your little show about.”

“Not so little if he heard it.”

“Tell me what it was like to give birth to Dean,” Cas asks, and Mary is too shocked to even give a shit anymore.

“Painful,” she says. “Painful and excruciating and bloody. And he’s been nothing but a pain in my ass ever since - ” Now she looks like she might cry. “And all this time I’ve been -”

“And he was right all along.” Sam’s got the shit-eating grin too, now. As if he has any right.

“I was worried for your mental health,” Mary snaps. 

“Dean is a perfect model of health. I have ensured it.” And Cas, slipping from Sam’s grasp, drifts over and around Dean. Cas squeezes and croons and Dean doesn’t even want to think about what his face might be giving away.

Mary looks studiously at Dean’s kitchen cupboards. Sam’s mouth twitches, but he’s watching it like a car crash.

“Cas here is my buddy."

“That’s great, Dean. Yeah. I can see what.” Sam tries to smile, eyes distant. “But - what does this - are you putting him on your show or something? I mean, what do you do with this? Are the Men in Black gonna come after us? I mean… what next?”

“The others will arrive,” Castiel says. “And we shall resume our work on the Garden.”

“Wait. More of you guys are coming?” 

“I requested the Cloud provide assistance with healing your planet.” Castiel clucks. “Your oceans are not a lost cause yet. Given my success with Dean, we can now move forward with establishing ourselves amongst your species again. I have full confidence in our ability to create a mutually beneficial partnership for the betterment of your planet.” 

Everyone stares at Castiel, who continues to hum and stroke Dean.

Mary starts to laugh, gasping and thin.  

A shadow passes through the trapezoid of sunshine cast by the open door. Dean watches it track across the linoleum.

“And there’s one now.” Castiel says. 

Dean, Sam, and Mary step outside, shading their eyes from the sun, to see the distant shapes of ships above.

A few hours later, Dean’s forums shut down.   
  


 

First contact happens on Native land. The Celestials - or as they refer to themselves, ambassadors of the Cloud - are very curious about the reliance on fossil fuels. CEOs and politicians rattle over sacred lands in Hummers and are promptly ignored by an alien casually dismantling a drill. 

The second one touches down at an Antarctic research station, seeking data on climate change.

The next one is found crawling deep inside a coal mine, giving Lovecraftian nightmares to the miners. 

Dean has a million messages in his email. He spends hours trying to write a Very Special Radio Broadcast until Cas sweeps him up. 

Of course they need a translator. 

Which is how Dean finds himself standing at a podium with a thousand cameras and microphones thrust in his face while he stammers out a message of good will towards the entire goddamn planet. 

Which is then how Dean finds himself in a locked room with the God damn head of the CIA glaring him down. At least until Cas gets worried enough to break in to crackle and bristle while trying to cover Dean completely in tentacles. 

As Cas puts it (later, safely in the trailer, with a tentacle tickling Dean’s nose) the Cloud is the cosmic force that created this very planet and no human war machines can stand against it.

Dean snorts, dipping his finger in a mug of wine to drip some on a tentacle. Cas appreciates the chemical process of fermentation. “Are you trying to be reassuring?”

“The Cloud loves you, Dean.”

“What, you mean all of humanity? Or just me?”

“This Cloud loves Dean. And the Cloud loves the Garden. It will learn to love its inhabitants as I do you, once the lines of communication are furthered.”

Wine stains a pink sucker red. “So. Are you gonna change more people?”

“I don’t know. I’m more interested in studying the agricultural techniques of your area.”

“Oh, yeah. Lots of farms around here; you’ll have fun. If you like, you can even go check out some of the cattle ranches. The Cloud seemed pretty intrigued by our species domestication.”

Humming, Cas traces the seams on Dean’s chest. “I would like that.”

“And… you should be a guest star. On my show. I’ll translate for you - no offense, buddy, but I don’t think that fake-English you do would sound good on the radio.” 

“Will this reach the entire planet?”

“The way my web traffic has been going? Probably. We’ll be famous.”

Cas slides a flat plane of suckers across Dean’s face. The only light in the trailer comes from a blinking power button, the lamp on the kitchen counter, and Castiel. Outside are the faint going-ons of the neighbors. Someone is setting up a grill. A dog barks. Kids call in sing-song games, clapping hands. 

Everything has changed. 

“Or not,” Dean says, suddenly. “Or we can just keep it like this. We don’t have to - you know. Be famous.”

“That barking sound,” Castiel says. “Is that a domestic animal? I’d like to meet it.”

“Oh, yeah. You'll get to meet everyone here, in time.”

Everywhere Cas has touched him is changed. The initiation started with his removed appendix.

It’ll be hard not to be famous. A trailer park in Bumfuck is about to be put on the map. There will be news crews, press conferences, helicopters and long black limos.

And Cas will pet a dog, and the cameras will find another subject.

Humans are, after all, extremely adaptable to change.

 


	13. Chapter 13

The sun is starting to set, casting long purple shadows across the earth. Dean opens a pack of hot dog buns, makes sure the condiments are all lined up on the picnic table.

Cas was supposed to be manning the grill. Instead he’s hovering over an anthill and telling a crew of wide eyed kids about how the hivemind of the anthill is an echo of the Cloud. Ants are running up and down his tentacles, curious. The hot dogs need to be turned.

“Cas! Get those dogs!”

“The dog is here,” Cas says. Yep, there is a dog, some pitbull puppy belonging to one of the neighborhood kids.

“You know what I mean,” Dean says, and Cas turns purple and wobbly with humor. “You're not allowed to mess with me today.”

The thing is, Cas likes the idea of celebrating successful revolutions around the sun. He’d been extremely taken with the idea on Mary’s birthday.

So it's been a year since Cas and Dean started whatever. Since Cas moved in. Next year, they're going back to Cas' s planet to celebrate.

Inside the trailer, Mary and Sam are making the pasta salad. Hotdogital420 - or, Kevin, as he finally confessed before visiting -  comes staggering out to the open Escalade laden with radio equipment. He’s already pretty much taken over the show; now that the fringe is mainstream and Dean is some global pervert, Dean isn’t doing such a good job on the show.

Cas serves ten hot dogs at once with every tentacle and the joke is, the kids don't even know the extent of it all. Somehow Dean ended up being famous as a sexual deviant. Or a pioneer, depending on who you ask. Even the other aliens think it's freaky. It was Cas who couldn’t keep his tentacles off him during a press conference. It was Dean who did his very best to hide his boner. It was Buzzfeed who published the photo, and yeah, it can’t be explained away. Whatever. Dean has been domesticated. 

There isn’t always time for a full scene. But tonight, Dean is going to party and have a barbeque with his neighbors and family. Cas will wrap around him while he eats and talk about how good it feels to feel Dean’s belly fill. Then the sun will set, the stars will come out, the fire will die down. The ship hovers, as always, beyond human eyes.

Mary comes out with the pasta salad and smiles at Cas. The kids leave the anthill, hungry, and the neighbors sip their beers in their lawn chairs and accept plates of food from tentacles.

Of course Cas doesn’t eat. He likes to touch the cooling coals. He appreciates the flavor of the meat juice, but he knows by now not to list every species present in each hot dog to the whole party. The Cloud has revolutionized the meat industry, at least, in respect to the cows. The end of closed-coffin burials has only ensured that the human goes to grass; the grass goes to cow; the cow the human.

And so on.

Once everyone has gone to bed, Cas takes Dean’s hand. Takes him up.

The operating table is wide and empty; the syringes are ready.

Dean stretches out, and waits for Castiel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now i lay my baby to rest; until, i dk, i make this a series with more guro tentacle smut. I mean, I got options here. will alien/human marriage be legalized??
> 
> say hi to me at spoopernaptime.tumblr.com


End file.
